They are the cheeky chappies who have gone from kids’ TV to Saturday Night prime time as frontmen on new BBC game show Ready Or Not.

So it’s no wonder Sam and Mark have had to battle comparisons with a certain Geordie double act who have been a fixture in Britain’s living rooms for two decades.

But Sam Nixon and Mark Rhodes – who star on the Beeb’s rival to Britain’s Got Talent – admit: “We’re just a Primark Ant and Dec.”

The TV duo hosted the BBC's Junior Bake Off (Image: BBC)

Sam and Mark first met telly’s premier hosts when they appeared on Pop Idol 15 years ago.

And Ant and Dec have given the new boys plenty of advice since.

They helped Sam and Mark go from CBeebies to a slot on the Beeb’s big game show Ready Or Not.

It launched in March and goes out 90 minutes before Dec hosts BGT without his troubled sidekick.

Dec is set to host Britain's Got Talent alone after Ant was charged with drink-driving (Image: PA)

“I don’t think Ant and Dec need to worry about us,” says a modest Mark, 36. “There’s room for more than one duo in TV definitely and we have no problem with being the Primark version of Ant and Dec.

“I suppose it is because we are a duo and we are mates and we do similar types of family entertainment that we would get compared to Ant and Dec.

“But Ant and Dec are on a different level. They’re like TV royalty. We’ve got so far to go before we should be mentioned in the same­­ breath as them.”

The duo claim Ant & Dec are on a 'different level' to them (Image: BBC)

Sam, 32, laughs: “If you’re going to be compared to another duo it’s better to be compared to the best. We always get compared to Ant and Dec, which we see as a massive compliment.”

Ant, 42, is unlikely to return to TV this year following his drink-drive smash that left a four-year-old girl in hospital in March, earning him an £86,000 fine and a 20-month road ban.

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So is this the lads’ opportunity to try and usurp their old mentors?

A shocked Mark replies: “We’re not trying to be clones of Ant and Dec. If you try to be Ant and Dec then there can only be one winner and it’s not going to be us. So you need to have your own personality and way of doing things. The audience can see we are trying to be our own people and hopefully they’ll like what they see.”

Sam adds: “If we have half the success they have had, we will be happy.” In their new show, shoppers get into a lift that has been turned into a game show studio. They answer questions, pick a floor and hope the star prize is behind the doors.

The lift could be a metaphor for their careers since they were joined together by Spice Girls creator Simon Fuller after they entered his show Pop Idol as separate acts in 2003.

The pair met back in 2003 when they entered Pop Idol as separate acts (Image: Birmingham Post and Mail)

Mark says: “Simon Fuller saw our camaraderie and took us into a room and said, ‘I’ve seen the connection and I want to put you together’.

“We both have the same daft sense of humour, the same morals, love our families, and we have separate interests, which keeps it fresh.”

They had a number one single but quickly moved into kids’ TV. Credits include Junior Bake Off, Top of the Pops Reloaded, Sam and Mark’s TMi Friday and a BAFTA in 2015.

Before moving into TV, they had a successful music career with a UK number one single (Image: PA)

Sam adds: “We have been doing telly for 15 years and although most of our work has been on CBBC we have always tried to make it fun for all the family.”

Mark lives in London but hails from Wolverhampton while Sam still lives in his native South Yorkshire, and the pair are both married with two kids each.

The two friends are so in sync that they had their first-borns at the same time. Mark’s wife Harriet gave birth to Scarlett on September 25, 2014, and Sam’s wife Anne had baby Meridon a week later.

Sam has just become a father again to a boy called Doyle. Mark jokes: “We’ve both got a daughter and son. I did get on the phone to my agent to ask, ‘Shall we do it the same time again?’.”